I’ve never liked feeling stereotypical. Which is why I would like you to know that this story does not involve a vanilla latte. As bland, generic—dare I say, basic?—as my tale might otherwise be, some lines cannot be crossed. Despite being the premier Starbucks drink of choice for women in their 20s, that particular cup of sugar syrup with a hint of espresso is not my cup of tea, so to speak. Judge me not for the sins of my age cohort; they know not what they do.
Stereotypes exist for a reason, though. Sometimes, the more you try to avoid them, the more you become one. And, aside from the coffee, this is a story of truly millennial terror.
Friday morning I sat down at my kitchen table to finish a piece of writing. I had tea, laptop, and, as I came to find out, no Internet. Which really shouldn’t have been a problem since the piece I needed to finish didn’t require any research.
Except.
I had saved my working draft in Google Docs. Opening it would require Internet access, which I did not have.
This is the first of several “excepts.” Which is to say that chance plays a starring role. Winston Churchill wrote in praise of “the decisive part which accident and chance play at every moment,” allowing for individual agency and valor. Skimming over the experience of my own small weekend, chance merely played gatekeeper to irony. Such is life.
I bent to the router at my feet and began the ritual of WiFi CPR. How is it that routers have stood athwart the flood of technological innovation yelling stop for at least 10 years? We have iPhones and Apple Watches and I’m typing on a keyboard without wires, but like an infant, the router can only signal that something is wrong, without telling what. At least it doesn’t cry. It just blinks regularly at me in a fashion that, I realized, after the desperation set in, reminds me of an EKG.
Unlike crying children and ER patients, there seems to be only one way to fix WiFi problems. It’s so disarmingly simple that anyone can do it. Just turn it off and on. And then wait. Which seems to be the technology equivalent of take two aspirin and call in the morning. In truth, I wouldn’t be overly bothered by this. There were no looming deadlines to be met. I have books made of paper and music to listen to and could stand to disconnect for a weekend. But it wasn’t just about me.
I confess. I’m a millennial. I run a website. And so, I really do need to get online, at least for a few minutes. Not a problem. For something as quick as a blog post I can just open up a WiFi hotspot on my phone and use that to get my computer online.
Except. With an utterly quotidian ping, an automated text message appeared to inform me several times that it was (a) free and (b) the end of all—the data, that is. The family data well had run dry and would not reset for another four days, roughly when the Internet repairman could come. For four days I would be stranded on a digital desert island, completely disconnected from the ceaseless flow of the information superhighway.
This is what is known as a First World problem, a life inconvenience so minor you don’t feel justified complaining about it—except when it gets annoying, and you do anyway.
In the meantime, I must forage in pursuit of Internet. As I pack my bag and grab my keys, bound for overpriced coffee and free WiFi, or $3 WiFi and free coffee, it all seems so typically millennial.
But not me. I’m well rounded and have wide interests. Don’t judge me, I’m different from all the others. I’m not trapped in a digital world. So I tell myself as I take a seat, open up the next silver MacBook, log on to Starbucks WiFi, and start writing.
It might have been the most millennial weekend of my life. And yet, prior to the spontaneous rebranding of the former Gen Y a few years ago, millennial was associated with millenarianism, a belief in a blessed period of 1,000 years that would end with the Second Coming. Perhaps it was a millennial weekend—but only in a sense.
